How to find fulfillment
from your business
by Kelly Schwedland
If you want to build a business that gives you more life, then you first need to know what "more life" looks like.
It probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone that what I view as the first order of business has nothing to do with business. The first thing that needs to happen in your business is a visualization of your personal primary aim.
What do you want from your life? What are you all about?
This process is critical to understanding what we need to do in our business. Without understanding our primary aim, nothing we do in our business makes any sense. But I don’t want you to walk away with a catch phrase or a buzz word. The purpose of this is to apply it in our business. Without application, knowledge is dead.
This process is probably the hardest thing anyone has ever asked you to do. As I have worked with dozens of business owners, often this can be the toughest question someone can ask. (So we have a process for addressing that frustration.)
Imagine with me for just a minute. You’re in a relatively large room. Seventy or 80 of your closest friends and relatives are there. They’re all seated in nicely upholstered chairs that match the golden carpet and walls. It has warm, soft lighting.
At the front of the room is a dais, a sort of low stage. On that dais is a heavy table. At either end of that table is a candle flickering brightly. Between the candles is a box. And in that box is you. You have to realize that one day you’re going to be in the box. And while you’re picturing this, you hear a voice, and it’s your voice.
Obviously, you’re not saying it because you’re in the box, so it’s a tape recording. As this tape begins to play, you start telling everyone the story of your life. About the mountains that you climbed, the rivers that you forged, the obstacles you overcame, things you achieved and the people that you touched.
Writing the script of your life
If you were to begin today to write the script for that tape, what would it say? What is that most important item that you want to be remembered for? I’m here to tell you it’s not owning a business. A business may help you get it, but it’s not owning a business. So what is your primary aim? What is your personal objective?
Sari Asher of La Grande Trunk tells it this way. She says that after nearly 10 years of being in business, some health problems made her look at her life. She realized the business had become her life. Probably the most striking thing at that time was that her control over the business was actually hurting the business and herself.
She points out that she had to "evolve" the way she thought about the business. That evolution began with a realization of what she wanted in her life. She wanted the growth, the balance of life with business. Asher wanted to flow with the world and enjoy it rather than be stuck in old habits and fight to prove points she didn’t even believe and that were causing her frustration.
That realization began the process of change in her business that now allows her to be the creative leader she enjoys being — with a balanced life.
Determine what that primary aim of your life is. What is it that truly energizes you? Once you understand what is important in your life, then you can begin to take the next step. You can create a meaningful strategic objective that will help you find fulfillment from your business.
Kelly Schwedland is president of American Business Dynamics, a small business consulting firm focused on issues related to growing companies.